* Bancroft (who called his daughter Susan his "transcendental baby") distinguished "reason"
from "understanding." By "reason" he meant "not that faculty which deduces inferences from the
experiences of the senses, but that higher faculty, which from the infinite treasures of its own
consciousness, originates truth, and assents to it by the force of intuitive evidence; that faculty
which raises us beyond the control of time and space, and gives us faith in things eternal and
invisible." See "The Office of the People in Art, Government, and Religion," in Literary and
Historical Miscellanies (New York, 1855), p. 409. Theodore Parker to Bancroft, September 2,
1846, Bancroft Papers, MHS.

2. See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1948), pp.
226-31.

3. See Bancroft's letters to Andrews Norton, October 17 and October 26, 1818; and to Joseph
Kirkland, January 15, 1820. See Bancroft's Journal, August 29, 1818, March 28 and May 17, 1819,
Bancroft Papers, MHS. John L. Motley, "The Novels of Balzac," N.A.R., LXV (July 1847),
86-87, 108; United Netherlands, III, 514. Bancroft expressed the same idea in his essay on
Goethe; and William Charvat has pointed out the similarity to Howells' comments. The concern
with evil in human nature was sound for a German writer, Bancroft said, "but in the United States,
thanks to the venerated sanctity of domestic attachment, the book [Goethe's Elective
Affinities] would be thrown aside with incredulity as a false and dangerous libel on human
nature." William Charvat, The Origins of American Critical Thought, 1810-1835
(Philadelphia, 1936), p. 18.

13. "Bancroft's United States," in Biographical Miscellanies, p. 275: "The atmosphere
here seems as fatal to the arbitrary institutions of the Old World as that has been to the democratic
forms of our own. It seems scarcely possible that any other organization than these latter should
exist here."

15. The image is Motley's, ibid., pp. 382-83; letter to O. W. Holmes, February 26, 1862,
in Correspondence, II, 65. Bancroft compared progress to the movement of the Mississippi
River: "There are little eddies and side currents which seem to run up hill; but the onward course of
the mighty mass of waters is as certain as the law of gravitation." Letter to the Barre Democratic
Committee, July 10, 1840, Bancroft Papers, MHS.

21. Ibid., IV, 275; VI, 324; X, 86. Parkman made the same point in Montcalm and
Wolfe, I, 9. After describing the "commonplace" morality and government of England during
this period, he said: "The middle class, as yet almost voiceless, looked to him [Pitt] as its champion;
but he was not the champion of a class . . . he was himself England incarnate." See below, Chapter
III. Motley's English people were also wiser than Elizabeth in perceiving that Spain must be fought.
United Netherlands, II, 281.

35. Ibid., pp. 109-11. Cf. Macaulay, "The War of Succession in Spain," in
Works, V, p. 642: "The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what the Roman, in the
days of the greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The conqueror had less ingenuity, less taste, less
delicacy of perception than the conquered; but far more pride, firmness, and courage, a more
solemn demeanour, a stronger sense of honour. The subject had more subtlety in speculation, the
ruler more energy in action. The vices of the former were those of a coward; the vices of the latter
were those of a tyrant."

36. Ferdinand and Isabella, III, 495-96.

37. United Netherlands, III, 121.

38. Ferdinand and Isabella, I, 297; and I, lxxxiii. Cf. III, 12.

39. United Netherlands, III, 20-21. The idea that the Dutch were trained to adversity is
reiterated throughout Motley's histories, most elaborately in his long introduction to Dutch
Republic, I, 44.

42. At one low point in English fortunes "the profuse indulgence in falsehood which
characterized southern statesmanship, was more than a match for English love of truth." United
Netherlands, II, 355-56. For the descriptions of Elizabeth and Alexander Farnese, see
ibid., pp. 293, 300.

43. Ibid., IV, 112-13.

44. Ibid., II, 74-75; IV, 106-7.

45. History, II, 58.

46. See, for example, Montcalm and Wolfe, I, 8-16, 21-23. "Yet Canada had a vigor of
her own. It was not in spiritual deference only that she differed from the country of her birth.
Whatever she had caught of its corruptions, she had caught nothing of its effeminacy. . . . Even the
French regular troops, sent out to defend the colony, caught its hardy spirit, and set an example of
stubborn fighting which their comrades at home did not always emulate" (p. 23). Cf. Conspiracy
of Pontiac, I, 112-13. Cf. Bancroft, II, 89; IV, 312. See Motley, United Netherlands, IV,
554.

47. Pioneers of France in the New World, 25th ed. (Boston, 1885), p. x. In this revised
edition the original introduction of 1865 is unchanged. I have used this edition because Parkman
said that its natural descriptions were more accurate, based as they were on a visit he made to
Florida after the first edition had been published.

48. Montcalm and Wolfe, I, 26-27; and ibid., p. 35.

49. Ibid., pp. 5-6, 18. France, where the jaded aristocracy played with the newest radical
ideas "as children play with fire" (p. 16), was worst of all.

50. History, VI, 138; II, 145, 155. Letter to Emerson, February 29, 1836, Bancroft
Papers, MHS. Of his second volume Bancroft wrote: "I have gone largely into the spirit of
Quakerism; & have had occasion to contrast George Fox & William Penn with John Locke. The
view, I have taken, from what I know of your modes of thought, will not be new or disagreeable to
you; the public at large may start at the truth. But what could I do? If Locke did actually embody
his philosophy, political & moral, in an American Constitution, why not say so in all simplicity?
And if the Quakers were wiser than he, why not say that too? Do you remember Locke's
chapter on enthusiasm? Pennsylvania is the practical refutation of his argument" On May 13, 1837,
Bancroft again wrote to Emerson, emphasizing his conviction that the contrast was accurate, but
expressing some concern about its reception. Bancroft Papers, MHS. He received a letter from
George Ripley (September 20, 1837, Bancroft Papers, MHS) praising him for attacking what
Ripley called "the always ignorant and often petulant idolatry of Locke."

51. History, II, 343, 455.

52. Ibid., VII, 260, 29; VIII, 346.

53. "Polity of the Puritans," N.A.R., LXIX, 490; letter to his wife, January 15, 1858, in
Correspondence, I, 209. Motley was convinced by Bancroft's criticism of Locke's plan for a
Carolina government.

54. "Irving's Granada," in Biographical Miscellanies, pp. 91-92, 97.

55. "The Age of Schiller and Goethe," in Literary and Historical Miscellanies (New
York, 1855), p. 189. Cf. his letter to Levi Frisbi, April 13, 1821, Bancroft Papers, MHS.

56. History, II, 338; VI, 399.

57. Ibid., II, 58, 155, 211-12. "Western democracy," Turner said, "was no theorist's dream. It
came stark and strong and full of life, from the American forest." The Rise of the New West,
1819-29 (New York and London, 1906), pp. 68-69.

Prescott was regularly more lenient than Motley, for he said he believed that the Past should not
be judged by the higher standards of the Present. (Mexico, II, 35-36.) He was inconsistent
on this point, however, especially where there was a scoundrel to be chastised: his heroes' sins may
have been the sins of the age, but his villains' sins were another matter. See, for example,
Peru, II, 200.

75. Parkman seems to be an exception. The Puritans, he said, had elevated thrift and hard work
for gain to the position of religious duties--"in defiance of the Gospels." (Pioneers, xi. Cf.
Bancroft, History, III, 312.) Neither Parkman nor Prescott had any Protestant heroes whose
economic motives required evaluation. But in La Salle and Cortés, respectively, the economic
motive is absorbed in the brilliant glare of more heroic and more pious motives. La Salle "was not a
mere merchant; and no commercial profit could content his ambition." La Salle, p. 90.
Cortés, Prescott says, "was not a vulgar conqueror . . . . His enterprises were not undertaken
solely for mercenary objects." Mexico, III, 357-58.

76. United Netherlands, I, 382-83.

77. Ibid., IV, 133, 242, 444, 482, 550-56.

78. History, 1, 429-30; VI, 137; VII, 304.

79. Ferdinand and Isabella, I ,380.

80. Dutch Republic, II, 255-58. Consider his comment on Jacob van Heemskerk
(United Netherlands, IV. 320): "Inspired only by the love of glory, he asked for no remuneration for
his services save thirteen per cent. of the booty, after half a million florins should have been paid
into the public treasury."

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81. Ferdinand and Isabella, III, 490-91. For the use of "success" as a test of virtue, see
ibid., p. 401.